God's Home: Two true stories for Christmas

Steve Raap

That's why I, among many others at work, pick a candy cane off the Christmas tree in the lunchroom each year. On each candy cane is attached a piece of construction paper. (You remember construction paper, don't you? The kind of colored, heavyweight paper we used in grade school and upon which we used to draw - then cut out, using our child-safe scissors - Thanksgiving turkeys, which we then took home and taped to our refrigerators at home.)

On the construction paper slips attached to the candy canes at work is the first name of a boy or girl from our area who, without our help, might go without a gift at Christmas this year. Each child's age is given, as well as two suggested items that he or she has indicated would be a great gift from Santa Claus.

One of my great joys each year is imagining the face of my chosen child as he or she opens the gifts I had found for them - especially if they are THE gifts that they had requested from Santa.

Unfortunately, this year, after searching in stores in Rapids, Marshfield, Stevens Point and Plover, I came to find out that the two requested toys of the boy I had chosen were not on this year's "hot list" of desired toys. In fact, I was told, these two gifts are several years past basic availability. It was then no wonder that I could not find them.

That's when I tried to put on the sensibility of a 7-year-old boy - what would such a small person appreciate, if not his chosen gifts?

I remembered receiving and crying in joy over my favorite gift of all time at seven years old: an all-that-Dad-could-afford two-wheeled used girl's bicycle, which he told me he would transform into an imitation Sting-ray bike for me.

And he did just that, by welding on a "boy's bar" across the gaping expanse of missing metal that defines a girl's bike from one for a boy, as well as fashioning a homemade banana seat (think padded mini-ironing board), and adding store-bought high-rise handlebars. He painted it pure white and decked it out in white handlebar tape. That bike, as homemade as it was, became my pride and joy - a bike I rode everywhere, as I remember it, until I entered junior high.

But, what to buy for my tree-chosen boy became quite the ordeal. Suffice it to say, I searched out and found three adventure toys that I thought any 7-year-old boy would appreciate. And to top it off, I brought out a related toy from deep within my own closet, cleaned it up, and added it to the mix of presents he'll receive Dec. 25. He might not cry over it, but I believe he might come to appreciate it as much as I appreciated my new old bike back in 1960.